Friday, June 27, 2014

Professional Left Podcast #238

"I dub you Pinocchio's conscience, lord high keeper of the knowledge of right and wrong, counselor in moments of high temptation, and guide along the straight and narrow path. Arise, Sir Jiminy Cricket.”

-- The Blue Fairy

Links:

Da' money goes here:

* Sorry for the Very Loud Music in the earlier release of this podcast. We have corrected the problem and have swapped in the corrected version above

"The Myrmidons of Greek myth were known for their skill in battle and loyalty to their leaders. In pre-industrial Europe the word "myrmidon" carried many of the same connotations that "minion" does today.

Quiggin on Yglesias on Douthat (is that like Tinkers to Evers to Dunce?)

The best way to understand Douthat’s piece is by reverse engineering his argument as a constrained minimization problem The objective is to minimize the craziness he needs to embrace, subject to the constraint that he must end up in line with the denialist conspiracy theorists who dominate the base. The best approach is to combine the most inflated estimates of the cost of mitigation, with the rosiest projections of the implications of doing nothing.